Among the various reforms which have been offered to the world, the projects for
universal peace have done the greatest honor to the hearts, though they seem to have done
very little for the heads of their authors. Rousseau, the most distinguished of these
philanthropists, has recommended a confederation of sovereigns, under a council of
deputies, for the double purpose of arbitrating external controversies among nations, and
of guaranteeing their respective governments against internal revolutions. He was aware,
neither of the impossibility of executing his pacific plan among governments which feel so
many allurements to war, nor, what is more extraordinary, of the tendency of his plan to
perpetuate arbitrary power wherever it existed; and, by extinguishing the hope of one day
seeing an end of oppression, to cut off the only source of consolation remaining to the
oppressed.

A universal and perpetual peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events,
which will never exist but in the imagination of the visionary philosophers, or in the
breasts of benevolent enthusiasts. It is still however true, that war contains so much
folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason and if
any thing is to be hoped, every thing ought to be tried.

Wars may be divided into two classes; one flowing from the mere will of the government,
the other according with the will of society itself.

Those of the first class can no otherwise be prevented than by such a reformation of
the government, as may identify its will with the will of the society. The project of
Rousseau, was, consequently, as preposterous as it was impotent. Instead of being with an
external application, and even precluding internal remedies, he ought to have commenced
with, and chiefly relied on the latter prescription.

He should have said, whilst war is to depend on those whose ambition, whose revenge,
whose avidity, or whose caprice may contradict the sentiment of the community, and yet be
uncontrouled by it; whilst war is to be declared by those who are to spend the public
money, not by those who are to pay it; by those who are to direct the public forces, not
by those who are to support them; by those whose power is to be raised, not by those whose
chains may be riveted the disease must continue to be hereditary like the
government of which it is the offspring. As the first step towards a cure, the government
itself must be regenerated. Its will must be made subordinate to, or rather the same with,
the will of the community.

Had Rousseau lived to see the constitutions of the United States and of France, his
judgement might have escaped the censure to which his project has exposed it.

The other class of wars, corresponding with the public will, are less susceptible of
remedy. There are antidotes, nevertheless, which may not be without their efficacy. As
wars of the first class were to be prevented by subjecting the will of the government to
the will of the society, those of the second, can only be controuled by subjecting the
will of the society to the reason of the society; by establishing permanent and
constitutional maxims of conduct, which may prevail over occasional impressions, and
inconsiderate pursuits.

Here our republican philosopher might have proposed as a model to lawgivers, that war
should not only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are
to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits: but each
generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on,
at the expence of other generations. And to give the fullest energy to this plan, he might
have added, that each generation should not only bear its own burdens, but that the taxes
composing them should include a due proportion of such as by their direct operation keep
the people awake, along with those, which being wrapped up in other payments, may leave
them asleep to the misapplications of their money.

To the objection, if started, that where the benefits of war descend to succeeding
generations, the burdens ought also to descend, he might have answered; that the
exceptions could not be easily made; that, if attempted, they must be made by one only of
the parties interested; that in the alternative of sacrificing exeptions to general rules,
or of converting exceptions into general rules, the former is the lesser evil; that the
expense of necessary wars, will never exceed the resources of an entire
generation; that, in fine, the objection vanishes before the fact, that in every
nation which has drawn on posterity for the support of its wars, the accumulated
interest of its perpetual debts, has soon become more than a sufficient principal,
for all its exigencies.

Were a nation to impose such restraints on itself, avarice would be sure to calculate
the experiences of ambition; in the equal poise of these passions, reason would be free to
decide for the public good; and an ample reward would accrue to the state. First, from the
avoidance of all its wars of folly, secondly, from the vigors of its unwanted resources
for wars of necessity and defence. Were all nations to follow the example, the reward
would be doubled to each; and the temple of Janus might be shut, never to be opened more.

Had Rousseau lived to see the rapid progress of reason and reformation which the
present day exhibits, the philanthropy which dictated his project would find a rich
enjoyment in the scene before him: And after tracing the past frequency of wars to a will
in the government independent of the will of the people; to the practice by each
generation of taxing the principal of its debts on future generations; and to the facility
with which each generation is educated into assumptions of the interest, by the deceptive
species of taxes which pay it; he would contemplate, in a reform of every government
subjecting its will to that of the people, in a subjection of each generation to the
payments of its own debts, and in a substitution of a more palpable, in place of an
imperceptible mode of paying them, the only hope of UNIVERSAL AND PERPETUAL PEACE.